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Our New Arrival

Henry James Edward Taylor was born on the 29th of May at 1.26pm by Caesarean section at the Rosie Hospital, Cambridge, weighing 9lb 6oz.

3 hours old, very proud dad!

And a very loving mum!

Eyes wide open

In time for grandpa’s birthday!

Just like his dad; cheers son!

One day old at the Rosie

Henry is also known as little ‘Fozzie Bear’

With his cousin Ben’s teddy

Course of events

28th-29th May 2008

Wednesday

• 2.30am: Contractions started.
• 9.30pm: Contractions now about three minutes apart.
• 10.30pm: Elsa the midwife arrives at our house.

Thursday

• 6.00 am: The waters have not broken and we are not progressing
• 7.15 am: Taken by ambulance to Rosie with blues and twos.
• 8.30am: Given two more hours to progress following manual breaking of the waters.
• 10.30am: The head has dropped into the pelvis and we continue for another two hours.
• 12.30 pm: We are given options of medical intervention - forceps and or ventouse - which we do not want.

Celia had been through a 36 hour labour, with only the use of a TENS machine plus gas and air, and was extremely exhausted (and so was dad!). However, little Henry showed no signs of distress at all. Throughout this period I continued to perform Osteopathic treatments to try to ease the effects of labour and bring about a normal birth. Unfortunately, the second stage of labour could not be achieved owing to Henry’s size.

A spinal block is unsuccessful so we elect for a Caesarean to prevent compression and trauma to mother and baby. The Rosie surgical team take over and within 10 minutes, at 1.26pm on Thursday the 29th of May 2008, he is in my arms and with his mum one hour later.

Henry was rather sleepy and unable to feed because of the combined effect of the Caesarean, lack of normal vaginal birth, the effects of a general anaesthetic and the 36 hour labour. I gave him his first Osteopathic treatment 10 minutes after the birth. Stella Archer saw him four days later to rebalance his head as his jaw was being retracted preventing him from suckling properly. During our stay, I was asked by the midwives to treat several babies that had suffered traumatic births.

Thanks!

I would like to mention that nothing really prepared us for the sheer emotional and physical trauma that we went through, and the amazing stamina and determination shown by Celia. Even though we had planned a home birth - and special thanks to Elsa the midwife, Barbara Taylor and the community midwife team - we would like to also extend our sincere thanks to the Rosie team whose experience and skill was greatly appreciated.

We would also like to extend a very special thank you to Sue our NCT teacher and all our NCT friends, to our family and friends and to all those that have so kindly showered us with cards and gifts for little Henry, especially Elaine who made his quilt.